AnC Food Blog

This is a very easy Asian dish from the book Everyday Harumi by Harumi Kurihara. We tend to make it a lot, as it is both simple and delicious. You can use any ground meat for this dish, though chicken is probably our favorite. We also prefer to use long-grain jasmine wild rice, but you could use another rice if you want (though I highly recommend jasmine rice, because the smell, texture, and flavor will make you forget you ever ate anything else). Presentation is a key factor in this dish as well; if you have a bento box this is the perfect dish for it.

Top me off!

We seem to go through Mac and Cheese recipes like there’s no tomorrow. This one is extra creamy and rich, due to the thicker rue. The recipe calls for Velveeta, but its so much easier (and tastier) to make your own cheese base.

Onward, to the noms!

Sun dried tomatoes are pretty delicious (in fact, they’re one of the few “styles” of tomato that Ashley will eat). The fact that you can make them yourself from fresh tomatoes or buy them bagged for long-term tomato storage is also nifty. They are also super healthy for you! One way to serve them is to stuff them into some chicken, then stuff the chicken into your mouth.

Let’s get started, shall we?

SO, Cory has decided to jump on the homebrew train and try his hand at making beer. We bought all the necessary ingredients for a nice Amber Bock that we got to try a homebrew of in the store before we bought the stuff, so hopefully we can live up to that example. The first step is (of course) to thoroughly sanitize everything, because yeast and the stuff that goes into beer would totally eat up any bacterias from the air or equipment, making a weird, off-tasting beer. AKA not what we want. Also, I am going to definitely copy this information from our handy brew procedure sheet, just because I don’t remember a lot of technical names for things.

So here we go!

We saw this recipe on an episode of Down Home With the Neelys, and decided to take it into our own hands because it looks very delicious… and it is also actually very delicious.

You will need:
2 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into cubes
Onion, if you want some…. we did not
1/3 cup mayo
2 tbsp orange juice
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Very simple directions:
1. Add sweet potatoes to a large pot of salted water.
2. Bring to a boil over med-high heat and cook the potatoes until tender, about 15 minutes.

3. Drain the potatoes and let cool in a colander.
4.Once the potatoes are cool, transfer to a large serving bowl (add onion if you want)
5. In a separate bowl, combine the mayo, orange juice, smoked paprika, cumin and salt and pepper to taste.

6. Pour over the potatoes and thoroughly mix. (Serve immediately or refrigerate for 1 hour for the flavors to meld.)… We thought it was wayyyy better warm, just because of the warm flavors included in it – pepper, cumin, paprika. Judge for yourself!

We made honey soy glazed porkchops with this, which is a different post, but here is our final picture: